Panoptic is a tense, 1v1 asymmetrical VR/desktop game that pits a colossal Overseer, armed with a slow but devastating eye laser, against a tiny dissident Being intent on destroying the Overseer’s energy source by mimicking the movements of others to remain undetected.

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Panoptic is still very much in development. As with many VR projects, we are experimenting with what the game could offer. We are thus very keen to involve the community in our development process, to gather feedback and suggestions!”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We have no way yet of saying exactly how long the full development of the game will take, but if possible, we would like to start Early Access by the end of 2017, and finish the game by the end of 2018.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The list of planned feature is subject to change, but here are some of the things we are planning:

More maps

Story

New gameplay mode(s)

New mechanics

The list is quite vague, but we will update it as the final scope of the game gets better defined.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“We are now in "Pre-Early Access" mode, and offer a free demo that at least represents the core gameplay of the final game. This demo will be sporadically updated while we continue working behind the scenes on a proper base for the final game.
Once we have this base, and good understanding of where to take the game, we will enter a proper Early Access phase.
Until then, enjoy the free preview of the game!”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We will likely set a base price for the Early Access version, and increase this to the full price on Full Release.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We will primarily interact through the Steam Discussions, as well as Reddit and other social media.
We plan to update the Early Access game frequently, and base our priorities on what we perceive the community wants most.
We really want to strive to be as accessible as possible, and will read everything we can, and answer as much as possible.
VR is an exciting field, and nothing will get us to a great game like open discussion with players!”

Download Panoptic Demo

Coming soon

January 23

As we said in a previous post, we are hard at work on the finalization of the Early Access release of Panoptic. As we are reaching the end of that task, we find ourselves in dire need of some more preliminary testing and feedback.

To this end, we have prepared a brand new demo version for you all to try.

What's new?

First is the exciting part: there are a lot of new elements in this demo, which comes from an almost complete reworking of the game. We want to give you a few highlights:

A brand new map (one-third of an actual level from the upcoming release)

Multiple objectives to reach for the Challenger!

A refined graphical style.

A new (optional) locomotion system for the Overseer, for smaller or less mobile players, or if your play area is not big enough.

For the Challenger, a new ability to mimic the actions performed by NPCs in certain spots, to better blend in with them..

As the Challenger, be careful of falling from too high, as you will lose your balance and get stunned!

A new, dynamic music track that changes as the Challenger progresses through the level.

And a whole lot of other improvements!

And all of this is of course not the full extent of what will be featured in the initial Early Access release.

Why do a beta for a new demo?

The goal here is to make sure that our wide-ranging code rewrites and improvements work on as many configurations as possible. As a three-person studio, it is hard to gather a lot of data regarding different hardware configurations and compatibility. Thus, we thought that reaching out to the community was the best way to help make sure that as much as possible is in order, before moving forward with the actual Early Access release. And in the process, you get an even earlier peek at what is coming, especially after such a long silence from us!

One of the main sticking points for a VR game is performance, and so we are particularly interested in knowing if the game runs smoothly for you, and whether it does or not, what kind of setup you are running the game on.

We have already been extensively testing the game as it is now, and tried our very best to make it as robust as possible. We did end up recently encountering some issues, due to a specific Unity (game engine) bug. While that bug is being worked on by Unity as we speak, we have in the meantime replaced a lot of Panoptic's special effects at the last minute. Which means that, as with everything else in this version, things may be subject to change even before properly entering Early Access.

Even at this early stage, we would like to ask for your help to find what we should tweak. And things are bound to have slipped by, so we do expect game-breaking bugs to rear their ugly heads. Again, the goal of this Demo Beta is to put the game through its paces, and your help will be highly appreciated! Creating a game true to our vision is of course important to us, but an even better achievement would to make the game the closest to what you, the players, would feel is the best version.

We think it will greatly help to have a more direct way for us to interact with the community, especially for this beta demo and the continued development of the game. We invite you to join our brand new Discord server to chat with us and other fans!

This was a long post, but there was a lot to cover. We hope you will enjoy what we have been working on so hard, and the only thing left is to give you the instructions to get your hands on that beta demo!

How to get the beta demo

Step 1 : In your Steam Library, right-click on the Panoptic Demo entry, and in the menu, select Properties.

Step 2 : In the window that opened, navigate to the BETAS tab, and from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into:" dropdown, select Early Access Demo Beta. You do not need any password to access this branch.

Step 3 : The build should update automatically, and you can see that in your library, the Panoptic Demo entry now has [earlyaccessbeta] behind it.

Step 4 : Enjoy the new version of the demo, and hop over to [link to thread] to give us feedback or anything goes awry!

December 27, 2018

We hope you are well in this end-of-year period, and that 2018 has treated you as well as it could!

While we have been in a unfortunate and prolonged "stealth mode", we feel it is time for us to step back into the light, and give you all some exciting news!

Two years ago, we embarked on a journey, by creating the first demo version of Panoptic at a game jam during Gamescom 2016. We then spent the following year updating that demo in our spare time.Now, during the last year, we have been hard at work starting to turn that demo into the fully-fledged game that we had envisioned. This is still our main focus going into 2019, and we still have a ways to go. But at the same time, all this work is starting to pay off, and after some tribulations, we think we are almost ready to show you where we are at.

We will delve deeper into how we arrived here in a later post, but the important news is that Panoptic is finally coming to Early Access! We are finalizing the Early Access version as we write this, and plan to release it in the coming weeks!

As the days before the release wind down, we will give you more details on our plans, but here is the executive summary:

The Early Access version will contain the first 3 maps, giving you a taste of the full content. We will add more maps during Early Access.

The demo will be updated to accurately reflect the quality of the game, so you will still be able to try before you buy!

The game will still be 1-on-1, local multiplayer only. We will take some time later to delve into that decision in more details.

The game will support Vive (& Vive Pro), Oculus Rift and WMR headsets, and will require tracked controllers.

Of course, the main objective of Early Access will be for our very small team to gather as much feedback from you, the players, as possible! Which means that we will regularly update the game and the existing content while continuing to develop new parts of the game.We really wanted to finally let the community see what we have been up to behind closed doors, and that time is almost upon us!

So, while we are putting the finishing touches on the game for its Early Access debut, we want to leave you with some screenshots of what awaits you! Stay tuned in the next few days for more info, and bear with us just a little longer!

About This Game

Blend in, or be hunted.

Panoptic is a tense, 1v1 asymmetrical VR/desktop game that pits a colossal Overseer, armed with a slow but devastating eye laser, against a tiny dissident Being intent on destroying the Overseer’s energy source by mimicking the movements of others to remain undetected.

Born out of a multi-award winning game jam prototype, Panoptic sees one player enter virtual reality as the Overseer, a god-like being that searches the world and its inhabitants for any signs of uprising. The other player uses a desktop computer/console to become one of the tiny Beings under the watchful eye of the Overseer. Tasked with destroying the Overseer’s energy source, blending in becomes critical. A mis-step, breaking away from the crowd cover of other Beings, or being spotted destroying an energy orb turns the search into a nerve-wracking hunt. Armed with a slow-charging eye laser capable of killing a Being with a single shot, the Overseer will suddenly have the advantage, as the dissident Being attempts to once again hide in plain sight.

With an unsettling, science fiction atmosphere that hints at a dark and secretive lore, Panoptic features numerous interactive levels and environments, multiple types of NPC AI, a wondrous sense of scale, and short - but constantly intense - rounds of local 1v1 competition.